It’s hard to believe it’s the New Year, much less a new decade. I’m definitely feeling bittersweet about this one, but determined to make sure 2010 kicks 2009′s ass. I suppose this is the time for all good bloggers to do some retrospection, introspection and cast the runes for a look into the new year.

2009 started with a bang. I ushered in the New Year at my goal weight, and just days after doing my longest-ever long run (15 miles.) In late January, a small ankle niggle was a hiccup that was easily overcome before the Kaiser Half Marathon in February and by the time the Emerald Across the Bay came around in March, I was kicking ass and taking names. Coming off a huge PR and great race at Emerald, I was ready to start training for the SF Marathon. I remember March/April with so much joy. The days were getting longer, my mileage was piling up. I was doing some tweaking with my diet to make up for the increased miles (adding loads of healthy fats… YAY for healthy fats!) When the time finally changed and I could run after work, I started exploring new running routes. Professionally, I’d turned a corner as far as feeling like a year of stop-and-start initiatives had finally gotten rolling and I was finally seeing the results I wanted. Most of all, though, I was just grateful to have a job and be able to run and, of course, to have a great community of people encouraging me in these endeavors.

We runners like to use a phrase… “the wheels came off,” to describe shit going south in a race. Whenever I hear this phrase, I always picture a car, cruising down the highway just fine, and then you see a little wobble in one of the tires, then it catches some air and the wobble gets worse until, in an instant, all the wheels blow off and the car is skidding down the highway, sparks flying, directly into oncoming traffic. This was my April. Within a 4-week period, I went from starting my marathon training in earnest, putting an offer in on a house, and being all full of hope and sunshine, to being diagnosed with a femoral stress fracture, getting laid off and really starting a slippery slide into suckdom. I joined the Presidio YMCA and did a lot of swimming. Rob was in the Ukraine training for most of May, so I would go do “Fakeathlons”- 45 mins on the elliptical, 45 on the recumbent bike, and 45 minutes in the pool. Still, though, between not working and my general activity level dropping, the weight started to creep back on. By July I was cleared to do some “wogging” (walk/jog intervals) and on July 27, I wogged the second half of the SF Marathon. By August, I was really getting my legs back. My mileage was getting back where I wanted it to be, I was doing some fun speedword sessions on the track. Then, after a pretty unremarkable track session, I drove home and got out of the car to discover that my heel had started hurting. Weird, so I iced it and rolled my calf out. I had a race that Sunday (The Plate to Plate 5K) and it was feeling good enough by Sunday to go ahead with the race, albeit nowhere near goal effort. Big mistake, the heel flared and I was out for two weeks, then just back into some good runs when we went on a cruise for a week. The day after we returned, I ran the Bridge to Bridge 12K and everything felt great! I had some solid miles, including my fastest-ever mile in a race, which I pulled off in one of the later miles of the race. The next few months were a blur of just getting back to being able to run, to having something flare up again in that left heel area…

I had one last chance to hit one of the major goals I’d set at the beginning of the year- to run a sub-2 half marathon. When the US Half Marathon rolled around on November 1, I knew I wasn’t in the best shape, but we’d see how it goes. A few miles in, I decide to go for it… and then had to deal with the roller-coaster of emotion of thinking I’d smoked my goal by running a 1:58:01, and then the letdown of realizing the course was WAY short and I wouldn’t have likely made a sub-2 if the course had been a full 13.1 miles. Then the ankle thing rebounded, got better, went away completely, and then in Mid November on an easy 7 miler, something snapped in my ankle and I’ve been in major pain and haven’t been able to run since. I’m waiting on results from an MRI, but X-rays indicate that the heel pain was actually a few fractures in the calcineal bone. We shall see what the MRI reveals…

So, that leads me to 2010, and a few resolutions I need to make:

1. NO EXCUSES! Yes, it’s easy to say, “Oh, I broke my leg so I can’t run… There’s nothing I can do about that.” But, the fact of the matter is that there was plenty I could have done to not let myself get this far off track. I need to accept this truth- Yes, I love running, but I can’t rely on that to the exclusion of other things seeing as I look to be pretty prone to injury. I need to explore new options so that I always have something available to me, even when running is out of the picture. I can’t let “not being able to run” be an excuse for busting out the pity party hats and having a Poor Smurf kegger.
2. BRANCH OUT! This is an offshoot of #1. There are a few things I’d like to try in the New Year. For one, I’m joining back up with 24 Hour Fitness just so that I always have a gym available to me for crosstraining. Even if I do get back to running nearly exclusively, I realize that I need to have that resource available to me at all times, and I plan to explore lots of different classes and such. I am also really interested in doing the Boxing Bootcamp at 3^rd Street Boxing Gym. A friend of ours had insane results, and I like the idea of making an BTTW, 6-week commitment. It is a lot of running, though, so I can’t do it until later in the year. I also went snowshoeing for the first time last week and loved it- I plan to take this up as my “Tahoe Activity” and get in some good, long treks this year.
3. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY! I guess this is kind of tied to #1, but this year I resolve to be clear and present in knowing that I am ultimately responsible for every aspect of my life and wellbeing. It is a constant journey, there is no “endpoint,” and I really do feel like I’ve been hiding under a rock waiting for things to get better for the greater part of 2009. Things will get better, they already are!

And, since I’m a big fan of SMART goals, I guess I should set a few of those right now:

• Lose 1 lb a week during the FitLifeSF Challenge and get back down to my goal weight (127) by May 1
• Complete 5 hours of cardio and 3 weight training workouts/week, at a minimum for the 10 weeks of the FitLifeSF Challenge
• Feet on the ground by 9:30AM every morning
• Spend two hours per week day learning something new- either learning to use my new sewing machine (thanks, babe, for the awesome Christmas gift!), or studying for the NESTA Personal Trainer/Personal Nutrition Coach exams, or painting, or blogging… anything to keep my mind active and engaged

So, I guess that’s my soul dump for the day. How about you? What’ve you got planned?